5 - Hermann Andreas Pistorius

Summary

Hermann Andreas Pistorius (1730–1798) was a pastor and frequent contributor to the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, an important journal of the German Enlightenment. Pistorius reviewed nearly every one of Kant’s major works for the journal as well as many texts by both Kant’s defenders and critics. This chapter contains Pistorius’ review of Johann Schultz’s Elucidations of Herr Professor Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, the first book-length commentary on the first Critique. In the review, Pistorius uses Schultz’s Elucidations as the occasion for examining some of Kant’s own doctrines directly, such as his theory of space and time and the distinction between appearances and things in themselves. Particularly relevant to the second Critique are Pistorius’ criticism of Kant’s solution to the third antinomy, his claim that the first Critique is inconsistent with the Groundwork, and the claim that Kant is illegitimately biased towards moral ideas.